德国哲学家雅斯贝尔斯提出了著名的世界历史的轴心说：

      雅斯贝尔斯盛赞古希腊、古中国、古印度等文明，认为这些文明几乎在同一时代在不同地点都产生了伟大的思想家，并在各自文明中成为精神导师，从而塑造出了具有苏格拉底、柏拉图、亚里士多德气质的希腊文明，具有孔子、老子气质的中华文明，具有佛陀气质的印度文明。而所谓的“轴心时代”，正是指因为这些伟大思想家的伟大思想，我们才有了不同的特点。而思想的差异才构成了人类文化的五彩缤纷。

      此画源于作者2009年的一个梦境，梦中孔子和苏格拉底面对着作者微笑，两位哲人笑得非常和蔼。画像中描摹的是苏格拉底和孔子这两位东西方“轴心时代”的伟大思想家，画家在此借助想像重现了他们之间相遇及热切对话的场景，两位哲人背后是象征着和平与智慧的橄榄树。此后17、18世纪的欧洲启蒙思想家，经由来华传教士这一信息渠道获得他们关于中国文化的深入认识和集体想象，欧洲社会亦在此时掀起“中国热”，关于这一中西方文化再次相遇的场景，则真实地保留在启蒙思想家的书信及著述中。

<Confucius and Socrates - the dialogue of Sages between China and the West>Oil on canvas  Wan Li  180cmX200cm

  The German ideologist, Karl Jaspers, developed the famous theory of an Axial Age. Jaspers praised highly countries, such as ancient Greece, ancient China, and ancient India for their ancient civilizations. He believed that these civilizations cultivated great ideologists in almost the same era but in different places and those people became spiritual mentors to their respective civilizations. Therefore, this era created sages with representative characters, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle within Greek civilization, Laozi and Confucius within Chinese civilization and Buddha within the Indian civilization. The so-called "Axis Age" means that, because of the great ideas provided by those great ideologists, we have different characteristics. Thus, the ideological differences bring diversified cultures to human beings.

  The painting was inspired by the painter's dream in 2009, in which Confucius and Socrates smiled at the painter, and the two philosophers laughed very kindly.The painting depicts the two great western and eastern ideologists, Socrates and Confucius, who both belonged to the "Axis Age". By imagining the scene, painters recreated pictures of their encounter and enthusiastic dialogue, and what stands behind those two great philosophers is an olive tree that symbolizes peace and wisdom. Since then, European enlightenment philosophers in the 17th and 18th centuries have a deep understanding of China and carried out collective imaginations about Chinese culture by means of the information center of missionaries who went to China. At this time, "China Fever" is getting increasingly popular in European society. As for the scene of the interactions between Chinese and Western cultures, it was a real scenario and was recorded in letters by the Enlightenment ideologists.

“文化互译，沟通世界”